Vegetable peeler



Oct. 12, 1937.

c. M. KINNA VEGETABLE PEELER Filed Aug. 26, 1936 I114 I .Ilfll a A 7 1 m lama/7w? UNITED STATES Patented Oct. 12, 1937 AT E 2,095,640 VEGETABLE PEELER Charles M. Kinna, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada My invention relates to improvements in vegetable peelers in which the cutting edge is provided by a removable safety razor blade, and the objects of my invention are; first, to provide a tool which when grasped by hand and used, is not tiring to the fingers, wrist or arm, second, to provide a tool which can be manufactured at low cost with a minimum of mechanical operations, and third, to generally improve the arrangement of the parts of the device.

In existing paring knives of this class the actual cutting is usually accomplished by a wrist or finger movement and this is more tiring and less efiicient than the simple draw-knife action accomplished in using my improved device. I have also discovered that with my arrangement of the cutting edge within a space wider than the same jamming of the peelings is absolutely prevented.

In describing the invention reference will be made to the attached drawing in which:

Figure 1 is a plan view of the assembled device.

Figure 2 is a side sectional view, on an enlarged scale, of the main portion of the device.

Figure 3 is a plan view, on an enlarged scale, of the concave blade retainer.

Figure 4 is a view, in perspective, of the assembled device.

Figure 5 is a part sectional view of the concave blade retainer, shown as taken on the line 5-5 in Fig. 3.

Referring to the drawing by numerals, the shaped wooden handle it is bevelled off at the end It and the screws F2 are used to secure the main metal portion It to this handle.

This metal portion l3 comprises a portion of sheet metal formed in a simple curve and cut to provide a point it which may be used as a gouge and four openings are made in the curved part, one opening being the long rectangular slot 15 and the other three being more or less collinear transversely of the portion I3 and spaced in conformity with the distances between the holes in an ordinary safety razor blade E8.

The safety razor blade is held in the position, best shown in Figure 2, by means of the blade retainer clearly illustrated in Figures 3 and 5 oooperating with the said curved metal part 13. This retainer comprises a concave shaped portion of sheet metal somewhat smaller than the said blade and is punched so as to provide two lugs l6, l6 adapted to pass through the holes in said blade and to engage the portion H3 at the edges of the said holes therein in a manner made obvious by reference to Figure 2 in the drawing. A third lug H is formed on this retainer approximately centrally thereof and this lug is perpendicular and is so placed that it limits and determines the relative positions of the parts since this lug ll pushes the blade back into its proper position as the blade and retainer are being attached to the curved portion I3, it being understood, of course that the lug ll passes through a central hole in the blade and engages in another hole in the part it.

Any blade which will be used with my device will normally be flat and its attachment as above described will necessitate fiexure of the blade to an extent sufiicient to introduce suflicient frictional contact with the holder to hold the parts in position after attachment, which attachment is easily and. safely accomplished by placing the blade on the said retainer with the three lugs i5, i6 and il projecting-through the holes in the blade and then sliding these lugs into engagement with the part I 3 while exerting a slight thumb pressure-on the center of the retainer.

It is important to note that I have arranged the handle of the device in a direction perpendicular to the major axis of the cutting member so that the device can be used as a drawknife with full arm movement rather than with finger or wrist movement as in other devices of this character.

I have found that during rapid use of a paring device sharply curved or diagonal cuts are made and the peelings are apt to clog the ordinary peeler and to overcome this difficulty and otherwise to improve the general utility of the article I have made the slot 15 longer than the length of the blade I8, chamfered the edges of this slot and arranged that the cutting edge is disposed centrally of the slot so that the peelings pass through easily. Another advantage of this arrangement of the parts, particularly of the handle arrangement in conjunction with the wide slot feature, is that the pressiue of the peeler on the article peeled and the cutting angle can be easily varied with far greater variance in the thickness of the peelings removed than with other similar devices.

I am aware that, prior to my invention, several vegetable peelers have been developed and patented and that the mere combination of a safety razor blade with holding means and a handle is not now proper subject matter of a patent application but what I do claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

A vegetable peeler comprising a safety razor blade, blade retaining means comprising two concave plates both of which are curved in the transverse direction and one of which is secured to a handle and has a slot opening greater in length than said blade and the other plate being removably securable to the first plate by means of lugs slidably engageable in holes in the said first plate,

the blade being secured between said plates with one cutting edge thereof completely exposed within said slot opening, and said handle being characterized by its disposition substantially at right angles to the said cutting edge.

CHARLES M. KINNAv 

